Some babies cry for food. Others cry for attention.
Me? I cried because my rattle didn't sound right.
It wasn't broken. The magic in it was just… off. A simple wooden toy, carved by my mother's wand, should have had a faint enchantment to keep it shiny and splinter-free. But the magic had turned sluggish, like honey left in the cold.
I didn't like it.
So, naturally, I fixed it.
---
Fixing magic as a six-month-old is not exactly something babies do. I gently reached out with my mind — something that came as naturally to me now as wiggling my fingers — and pushed a little of my own magic into the toy. The moment my magic touched it, the 10,000x Crit System activated.
The rattle didn't just hum back to life — it sang. The enchantment flared into brilliance, weaving itself into a self-repairing charm that could probably survive a direct hit from a Bludger. The wood gleamed with a fresh polish that even my mother's best spellwork couldn't match.
Oh, and it glowed. Like a miniature lighthouse.
---
My mother, Celine Blackthorne, walked into the nursery to check on me… and stopped dead.
"Aarav… did your rattle just—" She blinked. "Glow?"
I looked at her with wide, innocent eyes and shook it twice. The glow brightened.
Her jaw tightened. "That's… not normal."
Before she could summon my father, I casually willed the magic to fade away. The glow vanished, leaving behind nothing but an overly shiny wooden toy. She frowned, muttered something about "buying toys from the wrong shop," and went back to the kitchen.
I giggled quietly to myself. Victory.
---
That was the beginning of what my parents probably thought of as the mysterious toy phase.
A ball that rolled back to me no matter how far it went.
A stuffed Kneazle that purred and swished its tail when I hugged it.
A blanket that always felt warm — no matter the season.
They thought it was cute. They didn't know I was practicing precision magic control before I could even crawl.
---
One afternoon, when I was about a year old, something less cute happened.
My mother was in the kitchen, humming to herself, when a stray curse came whistling through the open window. I didn't know who cast it — probably a misfired duel in the neighborhood. But my instincts screamed before I even saw it.
She didn't notice.
I didn't think.
I lifted my hand.
The curse — a nasty, crackling green bolt — froze in mid-air like it had run into an invisible wall. My magic wrapped around it, studying it, dissecting it. Then, without a wand, without an incantation, I unraveled the curse like a tangled thread of yarn.
The magic dissipated harmlessly into the air.
---
My mother glanced at the window. "Strange. Thought I heard something."
She went back to stirring soup.
I lay in my crib, heart racing. That was the first time I'd faced real danger — and it hadn't even touched me. The system had made it feel… easy. Too easy.
Which meant I had to be very careful. Because if this was easy for me as a baby, what would happen when I was older?
---
By the time I was two, I could walk, talk in short sentences, and cast spells without saying a word. Not big ones — I was still pretending to be a normal child — but enough to make life interesting.
I practiced in small ways:
Summoning my cup of milk instead of waiting for my mother to bring it.
Heating bathwater to just the right temperature.
Making the cat's toy mouse levitate in slow circles.
The Evolution part of my system was already kicking in. My spells became smoother, faster, and more refined every week.
---
But the Crit System was still… tricky.
Once, I tried to levitate a feather quill for fun. It zipped into the air so fast it punched a hole in the ceiling.
Another time, I meant to make a tiny bubble of water for play. The result was a sudden miniature rainstorm in the nursery — complete with thunder.
I got very good at blaming things on the weather, magical drafts, or the cat.
---
My parents suspected something was unusual about me, but they never pushed. Maybe they thought all wizard babies had unpredictable magic. Maybe they liked believing I was simply… gifted.
And I let them believe it. Because in truth, I wasn't just gifted — I was cheating.
---
The years passed quietly. I learned to read by four, brewing simple potions by five. By six, I could cloak myself from magical detection completely. I explored the nearby magical woods alone, befriending a young mooncalf who started following me home.
By seven, I had memorized most of my family's spellbooks. I didn't just cast the spells — I rewrote them in my mind, making them faster, safer, and infinitely stronger.
By eight, I had learned to suppress my Crit System in most situations. If I didn't, Hogwarts would probably think I'd blown up half the castle on my first day.
---
When I turned eleven, my Hogwarts letter arrived.
But I was starting three years before Harry Potter's time. No famous Boy Who Lived, no golden trio, no Basilisk drama — just a school full of curious students, strict professors, and endless possibilities.
I smiled to myself as I packed my trunk.
The world thought I was just another first-year wizard.
The world had no idea.